Mayor, Council Fight Over Street Paving Funds

PITTSBURGH (KDKA) — On Beechwood Boulevard and throughout the city, streets are beginning to look like a lunar landscape.

The city’s patching, but there’s no paving being done as the mayor and council fight over limited funds.

On Baum Boulevard in Oakland, to Darlington Road in Squirrel Hill and Fifth Avenue in Shadyside, potholes have become a menace to car and safety.

In the West End, a city patching crew struggles to keep up but can’t keep pace.

Money’s limited for patching and at this point the Public Works Director Rob Kaczorowski says street paving funds are non-existent.

“Right now there is no money available in the paving program as we speak today,” he said.

The mayor and his administration blame council, saying its failure to effectively deal with the pension crisis has depleted the necessary funds. Council members scoff at this, saying there is money in the budget, but the mayor’s playing politics.

“The money’s in the bank, the asphalt’s ready to be made, let’s get the paving program going and quit being politics and paving in Pittsburgh,” said Councilman Doug Shields.

But even if council is right, the $5 or $6 million potentially available for paving is woefully insufficient. In recent years, the city’s been paving 30 miles of streets annually when it used to pave 80. This year it will pave even less.

If this dispute is resolved, paving should begin within the next few weeks, but with what little money there may be available, public works will continue to a losing battle against the decay of city streets.

well maybe if the city would ask for money for things we need rather than tunnels under the river we wouldn’t be in this situation. I drive through bloomfield every day and have had to replace tie rods and 2 tires because of potholes.

The north side’s crying no fair because the new distribution of funds has each area getting an equal portion of the money, claiming they have many more roads to cover than the east end. Where were they last year when the east end got none of the funds?

Take a ride down Toll road 43. Pay attention to the southern portion near interstate 70 to california pa. perfectly good road being ripped up right now and layed back down! Talk about a waste of money!!! This state just needs to know how to spread the wealth!!!!!!!!

Has anyone stopped to think that mass transit is eating all the funds earmarked for road improvement? Before Rendell left office, he ‘found’ $45 million that went to the regional authority, which then, instead of using it to improve roads in SW PA, sent it to PAT to alleviate a budget shortfall. One of the biggest reasons our roads are a mess is because the Pittsburgh mass transit system (that the 10 counties in SWPA actually pay for) is sucking all the oxygen out of the room. Make PAT self sustaining and other money will be freed up to actually serve the greater public.